In part 1 of this article series, I covered the general idea of sports, especially football, being so commonplace that fans find it odd when people don’t seem to care, but it’s perfectly fine and normal for people, well, not to care.
Read Part 1 Here!
In this post I wanted to cover more of just how the sports-obsessed people out there seem to act, from my point of view, in a way to maybe put in perspective just how extreme the obsession with sports (again, especially football) actually is. To do this, I will compare some of the behavours I’ve noticed with groups that are normally the subject of so much ridicule to those sports-obsessed people.
Disclaimer again: Like whatever you like, but don’t give others hell for not liking what you do.
At a previous big-box retail job I worked in, we would always get in massive, $2000 TV sets for, what else, the Super Bowl. We joked, always calling them “rental TV’s” with friends, and sometimes customers we mentioned this to asking what we meant by that, as if we actually rented TV’s.
Ever notice football is used almost ALWAYS to advertise TV’s?
We explained to them that these TV’s are always purchased, used once, for the Super Bowl, then returned. Every year, it happened with damn near every one of those sets.
Compare that to a gamer who will purchase as good a display as they can and keep it around as long as they can. I’ve never once heard of anyone, save for maybe the occasional oddball, buying a high end TV or monitor just to play one particular video game, then returning it to the store. It just doesn’t happen like it does with the Super Bowl.
Next up, “game rooms”. You ever see some picture of a room filled with sports memorabilia like jerseys, balls, autographed pictures, all that. That’s seen as a prized collection right? Then you contrast to a gamer-geeks room. Could be full of who knows what, game posters, maybe autographed game collectables or if they have other hobbies, stuff relating to that hobby as well, like rare DVD’s, or maybe figures from a favourite TV show or piece of animation. That stuff is seen as juvenile, childish, or just plain stupid.
On the left, a sports room. on the right, a video game room. What’s the difference?
Why? Football is played by kids. By your logic then football is childish as well. People want to be surrounded by items they like – you like Football, others, like me, might like gaming, animation, and space history (maybe not so much the latter but I have Space Shuttle photos right next to gaming posters, so it is what it is) but the fact remains, there is nothing wrong with that.
Another fun comparison would be Fantasy Football; a tabletop pen and paper game that uses actual statistics from real players put into fictional teams. I don’t know how the game is played in too much detail but from what I have read, it is rather similar in general concept to most tabletop RPG’s like Dungeons and Dragons, so much so Fantasy Football has the joke name “D&D for Jocks”. Of course, if you play D&D around some sports fans, you are subject to ridicule, but their Fantasy Football is fine.
Again, what’s the difference between Fantasy Football and D&D, beyond FF using real game data?
Sure, makes sense.
Oh, and lastly, let’s not get into the irony of sports video games. People will line up and wait to get the latest Madden or NBA game the moment it’s released, every year. Yep… Gaming is so prominent now that even the people who used to make fun of those who played video games now line up and wait to get sports video games.
The runny thing is, they devalue quickly. The moment the next years game is released, the last years game drops to barely a few dollars in value, if even that.
Compare that to the average Japanese RPG from the Super Nintendo which can go for easily $100 or more, or some other, more rare classic NES games, which can go for thousands. It’s just funny, really, to see the dynamics of supply and demand working in such a way.
I don’t mean any spite in this article – far from it. The only goal is to show the similarities between the hobbies. Traditionally being into video games and other geeky subjects has been seen as “bad” while being into “manly” things like football have always been seen as how one “should” be, the irony being the two hobbies are basically the same. The difference being the gamer geek types don’t generally act hostile to those who don’t like games. The opposite, sadly, cannot be said to be the same, now can it?
There are MANY more similarities, but I just wanted to cover a few here, for both the sake of comedy where it can be found and for the fact it should be shared. It makes ya think, if anything.
Humans are all mostly the same.